ATLANTA — The one thing Kyle Kendrick consistently has had going for him throughout his career is durability. Whether it is in the starting rotation or out of the bullpen, the right-hander has spent six-plus big-league seasons taking the ball when it is his turn.

There is value in that. However, that value evaporates when, for a solid year, those outings mostly result in agony for the team.

Kendrick started the final half-season before he hits the free-agent market with a thud Sunday at Turner Field, giving up six runs in five innings before a rain delay mercifully excused him for the rest of the afternoon as the Phillies limped home after an 8-2 loss to the Braves.

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As the results get worse and worse, Kendrick gets more and more curt, more and more dour. It’s no wonder: Barring a wildly radical turnaround in the next 10 weeks, Kendrick has cost himself tens of millions.

His downfall Sunday came in the second inning instead of the first, which has been a much-discussed bugaboo for him. The bigger issue is that when Kendrick has an inning where he struggles, very rarely does he find a way to minimize the damage. The trouble against the Braves came via a leadoff double in the second by Justin Upton and a home run by Chris Johnson that put Atlanta up, 2-1.

The game got completely out of hand in the third, as B.J. Upton led off with a walk and Freddie Freeman and Justin Upton were hit by pitches (the Upton plunking led to his leaving the game with a bruised triceps after a 99-minute rain delay) to load the bases. Kendrick didn’t come close to the strike zone on a four-pitch walk by Jason Heyward that pushed across a run, and after Johnson smashed a lineout right at Marlon Byrd for the second out, rookie Tommy La Stella smoked a ball away from the fielders for a bases-clearing double.

“He hasn’t done himself any favors early in the game,” Ryne Sandberg said of Kendrick. “He tends to pitch away from contact, then free passes happen and they result in runs on the board.

“He just put us in a big hole early.”

“I was just trying to get too fine,” said Kendrick, who is 1-9 with a 5.93 ERA in 13 daytime starts since the start of last season. “I gave up some runs in that third just trying to be too fine, not being aggressive.”

Out of 92 big-league starters qualified for the ERA title this season, Kendrick’s 4.87 ranks 85th. In the last calendar year, no pitcher with 140 or more innings pitched has an ERA as high as his 5.38 ERA. His record in that span: 5-17.

It is stunning how quickly a player’s value can nosedive in baseball. After pitching well as a starter in 2012, Kendrick went into the All-Star break last season 8-6 with a 3.68 ERA in 19 starts. It seemed the right-hander had taken a maturation step in his career that could lead to a lucrative contract after 2014.

That isn’t going to happen.

“It has been a tough year for me,” Kendrick said. “I don’t know why, it just hasn’t been a good year. Guys have bad years, and so far that’s how it’s been. Got to keep pitching.”

He has proven that, from a health standpoint, he can keep pitching. It’s a matter of whether the Phillies (43-55) feel the need to continue to watch Kendrick pitch, at least in the starting rotation. Rookie David Buchanan steadily improved during his 10-start stint in the rotation while Cliff Lee was out. He was sent to Triple-A Lehigh Valley prior to the All-Star break.

There could be trades that create the opening for Buchanan to return. If there aren’t any trades, it would seem Kendrick has put himself on thin ice by allowing 18 earned runs in 16 1/3 innings over his last three starts, pushing his season ERA from 4.12 to 4.87 in that time.

“We’ll see if we have conversations about things, about personnel,” Sandberg said of Kendrick’s status in the rotation, “and we’ll go from there.”

Not only has Kendrick murdered his free agency prospects, it also has hurt the Phillies. They not only have had to endure his substandard work, but also have seen a guy who at least should have had modest trade-deadline value become not worth the bother for even contenders seeking cheap additions as the July 31 trade deadline approaches.

Sandberg clearly believes Kendrick’s early-game miseries have made it tough for the offense to stick to a sound approach.

“It makes it tough to come back from when you’re talking three, four, five runs early,” Sandberg said. “It’s a tough tone for our offense and creates a mountain to climb for the rest of the game.

“It’s an uphill climb. Maybe there are guys pressing in at-bats resulting in strikeouts. That might be contagious with base-on-balls coming out of the bullpen.”